Enjoy the tid-bits of our everyday life: dairy goats, sheep, poultry, beekeeping, gardening, cheese making, spinning and knitting, quilting, and soap making. We're not experts, but we are willing to give almost anything a try! We're learning something new everyday--drop by once in a while and see what we've learned today!
I have no idea what I did or what videos I had that violated their 'Community Guidelines.'
This is the first email I received about my violations. Nothing was sent earlier.
It seems that YouTube doesn't like backyard hobby farmers who try to teach kids about animals.
If you go to my YouTube channel, this is what you get. Because seeing videos of animals being treated well must be wrong.
This isn't true. Account owners do not receive an email detailing the reason for the termination. The first photo is a screen shot of the email I received.
Neither my blog nor my YouTube channel (Welcome Home Farm) are monetized. I do it because it's my way to give back to a wonderful community of backyard hobby farmers, help a few people who want to be hobby farmers, and let young kids ask questions and learn about what we do on our farm.
Please be patient as I go back to photos for a while and figure out what's going on with YouTube.
I'll try to upload as many videos as possible directly to Blogger. I was thinking of switching to Vimeo, but Blogger and Vimeo don't talk to each other.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments!
Yes, even when YouTube shuts you down, you don't have to pass along someone else's bad behavior to the next person you meet. You can still do something nice for someone else every day.
It was a beautiful morning! This is what it looked like when I went out to the barn this morning. I love working on the farm because I have the chance to see the mountains and the clouds beyond the barn. I love seeing the frost on the grass, too. I think it's so pretty!
Dear Layna,
Yes, we have two dogs. Our dogs names are Scout and JJ. This week we have another dog named Surry. She belongs to Quin and Xander. They are away for Fall Break so Surry gets to stay on the farm.
Surry loves the farm, she loves being outside.
Like many dogs, Surry likes to howl when she hears the sirens. If you listen closely you can hear Scout howling, too.
We have really good dogs!
Do you obey your parents and your teacher as well as our dogs obey me?
I love these dogs! They obey, they play, they do good work on the farm, and they don't bark very much!
JJ is on the left in the back of the photo. JJ is a girl. Scout is in the front. Scout is a boy. They will sit here as long as I tell them to. They won't move unless I tell them it's ok to get up.
* * * * * * *
It's really important that we remove horns from baby goats. Goats horns can grow very big! Your teacher has a big goat horn to look at.
I don't think your parents would let you play with your friends if you were carrying knives in your hands. Goats love to play, just like you do. If they have horns on their heads they can hurt each other or people. They don't want to hurt anyone on purpose, so we make sure they are safe. We take off their horns when they are babies.
Sometimes the horns grow back, but not very well. Those small, weak horns are called scurs.
A few weeks ago we had to trim Curly's horn. He has a scur that grows around into his head.
Curly doesn't mind us cutting his scur off. It doesn't hurt to cut it off. Trimming scurs is just like trimming fingernails (or hooves!)
Can you see the little sore that was underneath Curly's horn? We have to take Curly's horn off because it grows around in a circle and right into his head.
We put some Neosporin on the sore spot so it heals up nicely. Neosporin is the same for goats, dogs, and people!
* * * * * * *
Are you getting ready for Halloween at your house?
Here's something that I made this week. It wraps around a pillow. I like to work on the farm. I like to sew and embroider. And I love to play and teach guitar! I don't like to watch TV or play games on the computer. Some people think it's funny that I don't like TV or computer games. I'm happy with my hobbies!
What kinds of things do you like to do? What hobbies do you have? Do you like to read, or play with Legos? What are you going to do next week during Fall Break?
I hope you have a great Fall Break next week! I hope you do nice things for other people even when you aren't in school!
It was great to visit at your school last week! I hope you enjoyed the cider. It's a lot of work to make cider but it's delicious so we do it every year.
We work hard picking apples a few days before we come to school.
Dear Emery,
Yes, we have one apple tree. It's a small tree and doesn't grow apples yet. We have friends and neighbors who have apple trees and they are so generous that they share their apples with us so we can bring them to your school!
Have you ever picked apples from a tree?
Everyone in our family helps pick apples!
We filled a lot of buckets with apples!
We pack the truck the night before we head to school. It's faster if we are all loading than if I have to load it all myself.
Your custodian, Mr. Stewart, and some 6th graders helped us unload the truck and get everything set up.
Mr. Stewart helped us grind the apples to make cider. So did the custodian. He used to have Cider Day in his home town when he was growing up!
After we grind the apples up, we put them in the press and squeeze the cider out of them.
I was wrong in the video. We use a hydraulic bottle jack.
We made enough cider for everyone to have a taste!
I hope you enjoyed our visit!
The day after we visit your school we always invite the neighbors over to make apples from their cider. They have a great time, even though no one is smiling in the photo. They get to taste cider, just like you do! They get to see all the animals, and they get to play on the playground. It's a great day!
* * * * * *
Look how big the ducklings are getting!
The chicks are growing, too!
Dot is growing beautiful speckled feathers.
It's been a great week helping other people with cider and showing them around the farm. I hope you've done some nice things for other people, too!
She likes to play hide and seek inside the tarp that we hang on the gate.
River is a silly goat, too! She likes to get inside the dogloo. We have dog houses in the stalls because baby goats need to get inside them to stay warm on cold spring nights.
* * * * *
Dear Kaelyn,
We have a lot of animals! We have 8 new chickens that aren't laying eggs yet. We have 4 ducks and 2 ducklings. We have 12 old chickens that we will give away in November. They don't lay eggs anymore so it's time to let them live with someone who only wants chickens to eat bugs. We have 2 turkeys. We have 3 cows, one is a baby. We have one sheep. We have 4 goats.
* * * * *
Dear Reagan,
No, we don't have baby goats right now. Our baby goats are born in the spring, sometime in March or April.
How many months will you have to wait to see baby goats at Welcome Home Farm?
* * * * *
Dear Lizzie,
We had 3 people help stack hay this year that weren't from our family. We had 4 people from our family help stack hay. Sometimes we have help from MG, a neighbor girl, on Saturday mornings. Sometimes we hire a different neighbor to clean stalls. Sometimes Quin and Xander come to help, too. They like to feed the animals and fill up the buckets with water.
I do all of the morning and evening chores. I have help from other people once in a while.
* * * * *
Last Friday I heard some strange noises outside. I stopped milking River and went to see what was over the barn. It was a hot air balloon!
It landed about a block away in a neighbor's backyard. I'm so glad it didn't land in our field or the neighbor's field because the animals would have been so frightened!
Thank you to our friends at The Forge Jewelry Works who were right there when the balloon landed. They were so nice to share their photos and a video with all of us!
* * * * *
Did you know that mama cows give their baby cows a bath? Echo gives Miss E a bath every morning when I let her back in with Echo for the day.
Does it look like Miss E likes getting clean for the day?
I'll be pressing cider for a lot of people this weekend! What are you doing that is nice for someone else?
This chick is starting to break it's way of of the egg! It's so exciting!
Quin and Xander love to visit new chicks. They also like to give baby animals names.
Dear Addison,
Chippy was sitting on 5 eggs. Three chicks hatched out of their eggs. Sadly, only 2 chicks lived.
Smily lived for almost a week. Sometimes baby chicks die and we don't know why.
Chippy and her two chicks are still in the red tub, but I wanted you to see them so I let them run around in the barn for a few minutes.
The white chick is Peepers, and the black chick is Spot because she has a spot on her head.
We have more babies!
As I was walking out to the barn this morning I saw 2 little ducklings and their mama duck. Watch carefully and you can see that the little black one doesn't walk very well.
I put mama and both ducklings in a stall with food, water, and a heater. I hope the little black one gets strong enough to live!
* * * * *
Do you see all the feathers in the pictures? There are so many feathers around the farm right now. It's fall and the ducks and chickens are dropping their summer feathers and growing winter feathers. When the chickens and ducks are molting (loosing their summer feathers) they don't lay many eggs. All their energy goes to growing new feathers so they can't lay many eggs.
This chicken looks sick because she is missing so many feathers. She's not sick, and she wasn't in a fight with another chicken. She's busy loosing her summer feathers and growing her new winter feathers.
* * * * *
Dear Hinalei,
We have one cow, her name is Echo. She has a calf named Miss E. We also have a steer named Chuck. How many cows do we have?
Mrs. Hahn is helping Miss E learn to trust everyone!
* * * * *
Dear Roman,
I get this question a lot! A horse costs a lot of money to feed. They are a lot of fun, and they are a lot of work.
We get milk from the cow and goats, but we only get poo from a horse. We can feed all of our animals (3 cows, 1 sheep, and 4 goats) for the same amount of money that it costs to keep 2 horses.
Horses are a lot of fun! We're very happy with the animals we have and don't have any plans to get a horse.
* * * * *
Have you been able to do something nice for someone else every day last week? Did you do nice things for people in school or at home?
Our hay barn cost about $2,000 for the wood, nails, and cement to build. We built it ourselves so we didn't have to pay anyone. It was a lot of work for us, but we like hard work. It's nice to be able to look at something we've built ourselves and say, "We did that!"
It was a lot of work to build the hay barn, and it's a lot of work to unload hay from a trailer and stack it in the barn.
Our hay barn has enough hay to last until next May for all the animals. In April and May the pastures start to grow enough grass for them to eat. There is still grass for them to eat right now, but not very much so we feed about 1/2 bale of hay a day.
Sometimes hard work is NO FUN! Sometimes the fun is when we're all done and we can say, "Look at what we did!" Sometimes we have fun when we work. I bet you will be surprised that we have people who love to come help us on the farm! One little girl comes every Saturday morning to help with the chores. She fills all the water buckets, and she loves to milk the goats.
We have people who like to help us unload hay, too! We have people who like to come help clean out stalls! That may not sound like much fun to you, but many people like working with animals and working around a farm. They don't want the responsibility of doing it every day, but they love being able to help us, and they really like working hard.
By October we will be feeding at least 1 bale of hay a day because there won't be any new grass growing on the pastures.
Miss E is growing! She is so sweet, I love going out to the barn.
It's my responsibility to feed her every morning. Sometimes I'm tired and don't want to get out of bed. Responsibilities are good things to have because they make sure we keep doing good things every day.
Miss E is starting to eat hay and graze on the pasture. She was born August 13 so she is one month old. Calves drink milk for about the first month, then they start eating other food like their mama.
I am also responsible for feeding, watering, and milking every morning. If I don't go out to the barn and do my chores, the animals won't be able to stay healthy and happy. They would be hungry! All the people that like to get milk from Echo and our goats wouldn't be able to get milk, either. That would make them sad.
Everyone has jobs and responsibilities.
Chippy is our little speckled hen. Her job is to sit on eggs. She has been sitting on eggs and keeping them warm since August 25. They should hatch this weekend.
If a hen doesn't do her job of keeping the eggs warm , they would never hatch. Quin loves Chippy and he checks on her every time he comes for a visit. He's so gentle when he pets her and checks on her. He makes sure she has food and water near her so she doesn't have to go very far from her eggs. Quin wants Chippy to stay happy and healthy while she sits on her eggs.
Chippy will take good care of the chicks once they hatch, but our responsibility is to take good care of her.
This is Side-Kick and Chuck. Chuck is our steer (boy cow) and Side-Kick is his sheep friend.
Many farm animals need a friend. They aren't happy if they live in a pasture or a barn all by themselves. Chuck was by himself, and he wasn't happy. He needed a herd-mate so my friend sent Side-Kick to be his friend.
Side-Kick and Chuck are not the same at all, but they know how to be friends. I bet you have friends that aren't like you. That's the way it is with animals on a farm, too.
Scout, our dog, and Carson, the neighbor's horse, are good friends and love to play tag along the fence. This video was taken last winter, but it's still fun to see them have a good time playing.
What responsibilities and jobs do you have at home, or in the classroom? What hard work do you do that makes you feel good when you're done?
Don't be afraid of working hard, or of helping other people. You'll get such a good feeling inside when you're done!
We finished the hay barn last week. I didn't really work on it. All the men worked on it.
The hay barn is wonderful! It fits hay bales exactly so there isn't much extra room on the sides. The wood was all used at standard sizes so there wasn't much cutting involved. It has overlapping sides so there will be airflow, but not much snow or rain can settle on the hay itself. Air around the hay means we won't have as much spoiled hay.
The grandkids love to play on the farm. It seems there is always something to climb on or explore. This is the hay barn with the walls up, but no roof on.
Of course, someone has to climb on the stack of building wood!
And if you're going to play on the stack of wood for the hay shed, you might as well pretend it's a trampoline!
Despite the bad air from all the forest fires a few weeks ago, everyone spent time building, putting the roof trusses on, and finally the metal roof.
We got a load of 71 bales of hay on Monday. See how nicely the hay fits side to side? Each level of hay has 14 bales.
The front gates are each 8' wide, which lets us load or move hay with the tractor if we want to.
We have gates so the animals can't get in and make a mess of the hay.
We'll be getting 250 bales of hay this year which should last us until next June.
How do we figure out how much hay we need? Math!
In the winter when there is no pasture for the animals, they eat about 1 bale of hay a day. 8 months x 31 days = 248 bales. We'll start feeding 1 bale a day about mid-October so 250 bales should last us until mid-June when the first crop of new hay will be ready to buy.
In the summer the animals eat about 1 bale every 2-3 days because they have pasture grass to eat. We usually buy the new hay in June and feed them a little bit of hay as a treat.
Corn is another treat they love! Our neighbor had some old food storage corn that he brought over for all the animals to enjoy!
We're so blessed to have friends and neighbors that think of us before they send their old food to the dump. The chickens love the wheat, the goats and cow love the corn and, dried fruits and vegetables.
I am surrounded by people who believe that they can do something nice for someone else every day!
I hope you have a great week and find something nice to do every day!
